


Whenever You Want

by drpepperdiva91



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: A little angst to keep you guessing, Declarations Of Love, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Schmoopy schmoopy love and cuddles, Sharing a Bed, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6463114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drpepperdiva91/pseuds/drpepperdiva91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are unresolved, and they leave them that way, at least for now. Instead, they remind themselves of what it's like to be together again, strong hands holding all of their broken pieces, reassuring and steady, full of heat and blood and life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whenever You Want

The touching starts in the hospital: Mary is in labor, refusing to allow anyone besides medical staff in the room with her. David is screaming obscenities to a nurse about paternity testing. John is sitting in a plastic chair with no lumbar support, a cup of long-cold coffee in his hand. Sherlock is beside him, the palm of his hand pressed firmly between John's shoulder blades. Sherlock's thumb stroking a one-centimeter line across the tip of John's left scapula is the only part of either of their bodies that's moving. John is certain the small amount of contact between them is the only thing keeping him from physically throwing David out of a third-story window.   
  
When the baby turns out to be David's, John doesn't bother going back to his and Mary's house. He goes home, instead.  
  
\---  
  
Things are tense for a few weeks, what with John trying to get a divorce from a woman with a fake identity who has fled the country with the father of her illegitimate daughter, and a seemingly endless number of Moriarty videos sending Sherlock in circles around London at all hours of the day and night. Did they miss him? No, certainly not.   
  
In the end, they work it out. John's marriage is annulled; Mary is found and dealt with by Mycroft; Sherlock confirms that Moriarty is, in fact, definitely dead.   
  
\---  
  
Sherlock comes back late, one night, high on adrenaline but physically exhausted. John tried to tell him, weeks ago, that he needed to ease up on himself- his physical endurance isn't what it used to be. Sherlock pays him no mind, but practically collapses into the sofa before he even manages to get his shoes and coat off.   
  
John, treading none too lightly on the stairs after being awoken at half two in the morning, catches himself mid-grumble at the sight of Sherlock sprawled on the sofa. His face and hands are streaked with dirt, hair plastered to his forehead. His eyes are closed but it's obvious that he's awake, and either injured, agitated, or both.   
  
"...you alright, Sherlock?"  
  
Sherlock's answer is something between a groan and a low hum of assent.   
  
"Didn't get stabbed or shot or concussed tonight, did you?"  
  
At this, Sherlock opens his eyes and pats down his torso, seemingly checking for damage, before answering.  
  
"Hm. No, not tonight. Pity, that."  
  
"Pity, you haven't been grievously injured?"  
  
"I'd have more data. Didn't get a close enough look at the stab wound on the most recent victim because Molly's on vacation. Why she'd choose to go on vacation  _now,_ when I clearly need-"  
  
"You can't expect her to schedule her vacations around serial killers, Sherlock," John says with a huff of a laugh, sitting on the cushion next to Sherlock's hips. He rests his hand gently on Sherlock's knee.  
  
"Well. No, I can't." Sherlock closes his eyes again, and rests more heavily against the sofa. John can practically see the energy leaking from him. Sherlock's hand is pressed between his pectorals, as if trying to slow his heart rate and ease his chest pain through sheer willpower. John remembers the scar sitting just below Sherlock's hand and a few layers of fabric, knowing the damage done by that bullet will have physical- and emotional- damage that lasts for the rest of both of their lives.   
  
"Let's get out out of this filthy coat, yeah?"  
  
"'M tired."  
  
"It's okay. I've got it." John reaches over and starts unbuttoning Sherlock's coat, gently moving Sherlock's hand out of the way when he reaches it, giving it a gentle squeeze that neither of them comment on.   
  
"Can you sit up a bit?" John asks, when the buttons are done with and one of Sherlock's arms has been pulled free. But by this time, Sherlock's breathing is a bit labored, and his free arm is pressed to his sternum again.   
  
"I know, I need to stop over-exerting myself, undue stress on healing cardiac muscle, backpressure against my aortic wall, I know," Sherlock mumbles, slightly less coherently than he intends. He takes a slow, measured breath, and another. John's hand moves to his shoulder, patiently waiting. Finally, Sherlock nods slowly, and allows John to slide an arm between his shoulders and the sofa, raising his upper body just enough to slide his other arm out and pull the coat out from beneath him.   
  
John sits back down, on the floor this time, and lets his head drop onto the sofa beside Sherlock's stomach. Sherlock's abdominal muscles nudge John's temple in synch with his breaths.   
  
"You planning on sitting on the floor all night?" Sherlock asks him, after some time had passed. John had thought the man was sleeping.  
  
"Not all night. A little while."   
  
\---  
  
They had never really been the type of friends that touched, often. Brief nudges here and there, the pads of fingertips touching the back of a hand when passing a phone, a small number of hugs and handshakes.   
  
Now, they touch; exchanging time and skin. Shoulders and arms; faces and hands.   
  
They don't talk about any of the things they probably need to- not about Mary, or Sherlock's time away, or the scars John saw on his back while he was in hospital. Things are unresolved, and they leave them that way, at least for now. Instead, they remind themselves of what it's like to be together again, strong hands holding all of their broken pieces, reassuring and steady, full of heat and blood and life.  
  
\---  
  
John sits at the kitchen table, blowing the steam off the surface of his cup of tea. Sherlock pauses on his way by, running his fingers through John's hair slowly, and then resting his palm against the back of John's neck. John tips his head to the side, pillows his ear against Sherlock's stomach for a moment, before turning back to his breakfast.  
  
Sherlock pauses again, in the doorway of his bedroom. Without turning around, he says,  
  
"Have I told you, that it's... Um. I'm glad. You're. Back... here, I mean. I'm not glad about Mary turning out to be... well. But it's nice, you, here." John can't see, but Sherlock's eyebrows are furrowed together in frustration. None of that came out the way it should have. This is why they don't talk about things.  
  
"Yeah. It is, ta," John answers, and Sherlock smiles to his empty bedroom.  
  
\---  
  
Sherlock wakes in the middle of the night with the silhouette of a small man standing in the doorway of his bedroom, illuminated by the streetlights. It takes him an embarrassing number of seconds to realize it's John, leaning against his doorframe, apparently watching him sleep.   
  
"John."  
  
John visibly jumps, clearly not having noticed that Sherlock had woken up.   
  
"Christ, how long have you been awake?" The question strikes Sherlock, because it leads him to the deduction that John has been standing there for a while, a long enough time that he's embarrassed to still be standing there.  
  
"About thirty seconds, how long have you been standing there?"  
  
"...not really sure."  
  
"I've been told watching people sleep without their permission is a bit not good."  
  
"Pretty sure I'm the one that told you that. But it mostly applied to when I was bringing a girl home."  
  
"So why are you here?"  
  
John sighs, and his shoulders hunch slightly. "If you really want to know, I'll tell you, but I want to lay down. It's half one in the morning."  
  
Sherlock doesn't answer, but he shifts from the middle to the left side of the bed. John crosses the room slowly, and perches on the side of the mattress to toe off his slippers. He takes his time settling next to Sherlock, on his back and under the covers. John snakes his hand across the gap between them, taking a detour at Sherlock's radial pulse point before locking their fingers together. Sherlock squeezes his hand. There was a time when this might have been weird between them, but neither of them can manage to care anymore.  
  
"You don't have to, it's okay. I know we don't really... do this." Sherlock says when John stays quiet for a few minutes.   
  
"No, it's fine, I just..." John's voice trails off and he clears his throat before he starts speaking again. "When you were dead, I had this recurring dream. Or nightmare, depending on how you look at it. I would dream you were alive, that you had come back, or that I had been hallucinating, or everything was a dream... there were a few different scenarios but I don't think the specifics are really important." John stops, clears his throat again. Sherlock's thumb is rubbing a comforting stripe of warmth up and down John's. "Sometimes when I woke up, I wasn't sure what was real- if you were dead or if you were alive-" John's voice breaks off and he stops talking.   
  
"So you'd come down to see if I was here, look around the flat. And I was gone, and you'd remember..."  
  
"Yeah," John manages to answer, around the growing lump in his throat.   
  
Sherlock turns on his side, and brings his free hand up to rest on John's chest.  
  
"I'm sorry. I'm here now." Sherlock's voice is a low rumble, quieter than John has ever heard him before.  
  
"I know. Sometimes I have the dream, and I forget." John blinks away some of the moisture that's accumulated in his eyes, thankful for the darkness of the room.  
  
"It's okay. Stay here. Whenever you want. When you wake up, I'll be right here."  
  
"Or in the kitchen, tinkering with something."  
  
"Yeah, or in the kitchen, tinkering."  
  
John stays, dropping back into sleep quickly with Sherlock's arm resting on his sternum. When he wakes up, Sherlock is still there.  
  
\---

Sherlock puffs small breaths against the side of John's neck in their sleep, and John dreams of Sherlock kissing him. When he wakes and realizes what was really causing the delicate, warm sensation, he finds he's not terribly disappointed.

\---

They're walking down the street, after a case, and John winds his hand around the crook of Sherlock's elbow as if it's the most normal thing in the world. 

They don't mention it, even when the press does.

\--

When they kiss for the first time, if you don't count the times Sherlock has kissed the back of John's neck while he thought John was sleeping, or the times John had done the same to Sherlock, all John can manage to say is,

"We're idiots for waiting this long." 

Sherlock agrees, tries to kiss John again but somehow winds up falling out of bed instead, and the pair dissolves into giggles.

\---

It's not really about the sex. But even when Sherlock talks though their entire first time, seemingly unable to keep his deductions about John's preferences to himself, even when John figures out the perfect way to keep Sherlock quiet and then how to get him to make _that sound_ , and even when they fumble and laugh through learning the maps of each other's bodies, the sex is great.

\---

"John, what's it like to have sex with a woman?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"I'm curious. No first-hand data."

"I suppose I should be greatful you didn't ask me what having sex with my commanding officer was like."

"Don't get ahead of yourself. That's my next question."

"It's not that different, Sherlock. It's better when you love them, I think. Doesn't really matter to me what bits they've got in their pants."

"Do you love me?"

John looks at Sherlock, startled at the realization that he's never said it outright. He brushes a stray curl behind Sherlock's ear, and leaves his palm cupping Sherlock's cheek when he answers.

"Sherlock Holmes, I loved you long before you jumped off the roof of that bloody building, and I'll keep loving you until the day I die."

Sherlock's eyes soften and he smiles briefly, before he snorts and says, "You didn't have to go full out romance paperback on me, John. A simple yes would have sufficed."

\---

Two weeks later, at Angelo's, Sherlock nudges John's foot with his own, to get his attention.

"I love you too, by the way."

John nearly chokes on his lasagna. 

\---

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Your comments and kudos always brighten my day, so please leave me some.


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